Management decisions
ANU

 Management decisions (need for inventory information)
Forest Inventory.

Notes... Inventories are expensive Adds nothing to the value of the product Service function only Difficult to value potential for improved management

Strategic, tactical and operational...

  • Objectives of the organisation
  • Forest management control system - Where / what decision points (Mission Statements?)
  • Outline information needs
    • Compile and study available information
    • Reconnoiter area
    • "Think-tank" all requirements - include The Planning Team: Management Representative, Mensurationist, Programmer / statistician
    • What relationships could be assumed
    • Predict difficult but useful parameter from simply collected parameter
    • Outline final tables?
      • Standardisation: Kind of information. Form of presentation. Usefulness at local, regional, national or international levels.
  • Resources for collection
    • How critical is the time factor?
    • Less accurate results sooner?
    • Estimate entire inventory cost (budget constraints)
    • Marginal costs for additional information

SubHeading However, Iles (1994) states that an inventory designer must always assume that any list of requirements will be incomplete and that prior to undertaking an inventory it is virtually impossible to "find out the information needed and the required precision". This impossibility is partially due to the dilemma of not knowing what data is needed to make a decision until the manager has a good idea of what resources are available and how the environment will change. Instead, Iles suggests that it is more important to be able to deal with a change in the definition of what data are needed than in defining what the right data to collect should be in the first place.

[decision.htm] Revision: 6/2000
Cris.Brack@anu.edu.au